Category: Shutter INK

We began a regular photo post series, “Shutter INK,” that prompts our readers to write a caption for our featured photos by prose or by verse. Since then, we have received only one comment on our second post- and it left something to be desired. I suppose I would call that missing element enlightenment. But, as the Charlie Hebdo tragedy reminds us, free speech should be heralded even when it diverges from our own views.

So although I will not suppress the comment, I will exercise my power to contextualize it. Either the comment was a lame attempt at ignorant satire or, more likely, straight ignorant. The person wrote, “Just received my RAISE in my welfare obamamoney check, HALLELUJAH, glory be”. Not for nothing, poor mechanics and anonymity (screen name: “Al”) added to the class.

My question to “Al” is whether you would have been inspired to ascribe “welfare obamamoney” to the photo had the subject been Caucasian rather than an African-American woman? I assume the woman’s race also led you to include “HALLELUJAH, glory be”?

In essence, your ignorance only provides fodder for discussion.

Have we reached a post-racial United States?

I think not, “Al”.